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Apollo

In The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche developed the aesthetic
dialectic of the Apollinian and the Dionysian, concepts which were to
leave an indelible imprint on our culture. For Nietzsche the
Apollinian force symbolized all that was light, harmonious, rational,
and orderly, the form-giving force apparent in the best of Greek
architecture and sculpture.  The Dionysian force, in contrast,
represented that which was dark and wild; epitomized best, perhaps, by
the reckless abandon and mystic ecstasy of the Dionysian rites
described in Euripedes' Bacchae.

The modern conception of Apolloincluding scholarly research into the
origins of the god's culthas been much influenced by Nietzsche's
analysis.  Witness the following assessment of Apollo's cult by Jane
Harrison: "Apollo has more in him of the Sun and the day, of order and
light and reason."  W.K. Guthrie offers a similar opinion in The
Greeks and Their Gods:
"He is the very embodiment of the Hellenic spirit.  Everything that
marks off the Greek outlook from that of other peoples, and in
particular from the barbarians who surrounded thembeauty of every
sort, whether of art, music, poetry or youth, sanity and
moderationare all summed up in Apollo."

From such statements, one would assume that Apollo generally bore a
positive reputation among the ancient Greeks.  Yet this is far from
true.  The further back in time that one traces the cult of Apollo, a
completely different picture begins to emergethat of a god devoted to
bringing pestilence and plague, delighting in the ravages of war.

That the Iliad generally depicts Apollo in an unfavorable light is
well-known.  Apollo is represented as the leading god of the Trojans,
after all.  Homer's Apollo is preeminently a god of plague and
pestilence, and one of the poet's favorite epithets of
Apollohekebolos"the far-shooter," is thought to refer to Apollo's
propensity for causing plague with his "arrows."  The following
passage from the Iliad is representative of the archaic Apollo, being
in fact the first Apollonian epiphany in Greek literature:
"Down he strode, wroth at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and
covered quiver.  The arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry
god as he moved; and his coming was like the night.  Then he sat
down apart from the ships and let fly a shaft; terrible was the
twang of his silver bow.  The mules he assailed first and the
swift dogs, but thereafter on the men themselves he let fly his
stinging arrows, and smote; and ever did the pyres of the dead
burn thick."

It is the plague-bringing Apollo, in fact, whom Homer blames for the
outbreak of the Trojan War.

Apollo's darker nature can also be glimpsed in the Homeric Hymn to
Delian Apollo.  There a curious passage hints of an assault upon
Olympus, during which Apollo is said to have once caused the gods to
tremble and jump from their seats:
"I will remember and not be unmindful of Apollo who shoots afar.  As
he goes through the house of Zeus, the gods tremble before him and
all spring up from their seats when he draws near, as he bends his
bright bow."

There the god is ascribed a haughty nature: "They say that Apollo will
be one that is very haughty and will greatly lord it among gods and
men all over the fruitful earth."  It is in this light, perhaps, that
we are to understand the report of Aeschylus 
	[b 525 BC] that Apollo was exiled from heaven, presumably because
of his offenses against the gods.

As our earliest Greek source, Homer's testimony is especially
valuable in reconstructing Apollo's original nature and cult. And
while the nature of Apollo's crimes are only hinted at by Homer,
Aeschylus, and the author of the Homeric Hymns, it is clear
nonetheless that the archaic Apollo was hardly the god of light and
order described by modern scholars.

Whence Apollo?

Apollo's origins remain a mystery.  Here Guthrie has observed: "His
original nature cannot be discussed with profit, since it is too
deeply wrapped in obscurity."  Strutynski concedes that Apollo is
"particularly difficult to categorize," lamenting that there are
apparently at least a handful of different gods by this name.
Faraone, in a recent and most provocative discussion of the god's
cult, offered the following opinion: "Apollo is a multivalent and
polymorphic deity who has to my mind successfully resisted any
all-encompassing description or label."  Inasmuch as we will here be
offering a comprehensive theory of Apollo's origins and cultone
capable of explaining the vast majority of the god's characteristic
featuresa brief summary of the god's cult is in order.

The depth of the mystery surrounding Apollo is complicated by the
inability of scholars to agree upon the meaning of his name.  With
Aeschylus, several scholars have proposed a derivation from ollynai, a
Greek word meaning "to destroy."  Such a derivation would appear
perfectly appropriate for the god of war, pestilence, and plague
described by Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, yet modern scholars
regard it as unlikely on linguistic grounds.

To those scholars who viewed Apollo as a god of light and culture,
this etymology did not sit well.  W. Max Muller, for example, a
pioneer of the solar school of mythology and firm believer in the
solar nature of Apollo, offered the following objection:
"The ancients derived Apollon from apoll-yni in the sense of
destroyerPhonetically there is nothing to be said against it.  But
we cannot decide on an etymology by means of phonetic laws only.
The meaning also has a right to be considered.  Now we have no
right to say that from the beginning Apollon was a destructive god."

With this declaration the clear testimony of Homer and Aeschylus was
thrust aside, and Muller proceeded to derive Apollo from a Sanskrit
form *Apa-var-yan, meaning "the Opener," a reference to the sun's role
in opening the gates of heaven.  Needless to say, it would be
difficult to find a single supporter of Muller's etymology today.  Nor
is there any evidence that the aboriginal Apollo was related to the
Sun, as we will see.

Other scholars point to a relationship between Apollo and the archaic
word apellai, signifying an assembly of some sort.  This view has been
championed by Burkert, among others: "The name in the earlier,
pre-Homeric form is scarcely to be separated from the institution of
the apellai, annual gatherings of the tribal or phratry organization
such as are attested in Delphi and Laconia, and which, from the month
name Apellaios, can be inferred for the entire Dorian-northwest Greek
area."

Scholars are also divided on the question of Apollo's original
homeland.  The two leading theories are those which trace the god's
cult to the North and, alternately, to Asia Minor.  The proponents of
the northern hypothesis cite as a decisive clue the intimate relation
of Apollo to the Hyperboreans"those who dwell beyond the North Wind."
From these hypothetical Hyperborean origins, scholars assume a
transmission of Apollo's cult to mainland Greece via one of the early
migrations, that of the Dorians for example.

Those who seek the god's original homeland in the Near East, on the
other hand, can point to the antiquity and prevalence of Apollo's cult
in Asia Minor.  Apollo was especially revered in Lycia and Caria, for
example, sites of the famous temples at Didyma and Klaros.  Faraone
recently reviewed the controversy surrounding the god's original
homeland:
"Since Wilamowitz, scholars have searched high and low for an
'Asiatic' or 'oriental' origin for Apollo, whose favorite number
(seven), strong pro-Trojan sympathies in the Iliad, and odd
manifestations (for example, Smintheus) seemed to be alien to
Hellenic sensibilities.  As is the case with the early depictions
of Heracles, Apollo's bow has also caused suspicion, because
although it is a royal weapon of great prestige in Egypt, the Near
East, and native Anatolian cultures, it seems to have been snubbed
by the Greeks from the start as a somewhat unheroic weapon
efficient for neither hunting nor warfare."

Indeed, if one were looking for parallels to the Iliadic god of
pestilence, the ancient Near East would seem a good place to start,
Reseph, Erra, and Nergal
	 [Mars and Mars] 
each offering striking parallels to Homer's Apollo.

Reseph 

Reseph, like Apollo, was notorious for his "plague-bringing" arrows,
and in early Syrian and Egyptian iconography he is depicted with
quiver and arrows (as was Apollo in Greek art).  An early epithet of
the Canaanite god, in fact, was "he of the arrow."  Familiar from the
Biblical passages in which he appears as an attendant of the Hebrew
god (Habakkuk 3:5 for example), Reseph is believed to have originated
in Syria, but ultimately his cult made its way from Mari to Egypt,
where it prospered during the 18th and 19th dynasties.  Later, in the
wake of the wide-ranging voyages of the Phoenician seafarers, Reseph's
cult became established throughout the Mediterranean area, but
especially in Cyprus, Carthage, and Spain.  Upon the island of Cyprus,
in fact, where evidence of the god's cult is plentiful, several early
inscriptions identify Reseph with Apollo.

Why the early Greeks identified Reseph with Apollo is an intriguing
question, the answer to which is central to recovering a portrait of
the archaic Apollo.  Several reasons present themselves.  The most
obvious, as we have seen, is Reseph's intimate association with
pestilence and plague.  In the Keret text from Ras Shamra, for
example, Reseph is said to gather one-fifth of Keret's offspring to
himself, an apparent reference to death by pestilence.  This theme
alone would have inspired the Greeks to suspect an affinity between
the two archer-gods.  There are also indications that Reseph played
the role of dragon-slayer in Ugaritic myth, much like Apollo in the
Delphic myth of Python.  In Ugaritic Text 1001, for example, Reseph
appears as the defender of Baal during the latter's battle with a
giant dragon.  It is Reseph's arrows which finally dispatch the
monster, apparently rescuing Baal and the heavenly kingdom in the
process (this Ugaritic text is frequently cited as an early prototype
of Habukkuk 3:3-15, where Yahweh fights the sea; and it is in Habukkuk
3 that Reseph appears as Yahweh's satellite).

In other Ugaritic texts, Reseph is identified with the Akkadian
Nergal, the pestilence god par excellence of the Mesopotamian region.
As we have seen, Nergal was identified with the planet Mars by ancient
Babylonian skywatchers, and the same identification appears to
distinguish Reseph in Ugaritic texts.  Does this imply that Apollo
likewise had some relationship to the red planet?

Mars

In light of Apollo's resemblance to various Oriental gods identified
with the planet Mars, it is significant to note that the Greek god's
close resemblance to the Latin god Mars has long been acknowledged.
Well over a hundred years ago, Roscher documented that the cults of
Apollo and Mars were fundamentally analogous.  Roscher pointed to a
host of features shared in common between the two gods, including the
following: (1) each was associated with the first month of the year;
(2) each was identified with certain animals and sacred trees; (3)
each was regarded as a patron of migrations and founder of cities; (4)
each was associated with colonizing ventures as exemplified by the
Latin ver sacrum rite.

Apollo, like Mars, was invoked as a great warrior to fend off the
hostile neighbors.  An early Greek prayer invokes Apollo as follows:
"Send a far-darting arrow from your bow against the enemy.  Strike, O
Paian!"  Indeed, the Athenian army appears to have been under the
direct patronage of Apollo.

Both gods were associated with the advent and warding off of
pestilence and disease.  The name Isminthianssignifying that god who
sends, but also averts, plagues of mice (smintheus is an ancient
Cretan word meaning "mouse")is one of the Latin god's oldest epithets.

Yet the very same epithet was applied to Apollo in Asia Minor.  This
fact, if it does not support the identification of Apollo and Mars, at
least supports the view that the two gods were functionally analogous
in ancient cult.  The fact that the cult of Apollo Smintheus has yet
to be found on mainland Greecebut only upon the outlying islands of
Crete and Rhodes, sites of archaic Greek colonies situated between
mainland Greece and Asia Minoris an indication, perhaps, that Apollo's
cult originally came to Greece from the ancient Near East.

An unusual feature of Mars' cult is the war-god's identification with
a wolf.  This motif is attested very early and, as the epithet lupus
Martius attests, would appear to be central to the mythology and
iconography surrounding the Latin god.

As Apollo Lykeios, the ancient Greeks understood Apollo as a wolf-god
(lykeios is from a Greek stem meaning "wolf").  As the chorus of
Aeschylus' Seven attests, Apollo the wolf was conceived as a warrior:
"Lykeios, lord, be wolvish toward the enemy's army."  Wolves were
sacrificed to Apollo at Argos and elsewhere on the Greek peninsula
(this in spite of the fact that wolves were extremely rare animals in
Greek cult), and in Argive ritual a wolf was pitted in combat against
a bull, this latter rite said to symbolize Apollo's combat with
Poseidon.  Although scholars have observed that Apollo's
lupine-characteristics belong to the most archaic stage of his cult,
an explanation of the significance of Apollo Lykeios has not been
forthcoming.

Roscher's otherwise impeccable research was ultimately undermined by
his hypothesis that Apollo and Mars were originally solar gods, a view
much in vogue at the time but now known to be without merit.  Aside
from the rather dubious testimony of Macrobius, who had a marked
tendency to identify nearly every ancient god with the sun, there is
little evidence that the Latin war-god bore any relation to the sun.
Classical scholars, likewise, have found that Apollo's identification
with the sun evolved comparatively late in Greek religion.  Astour's
opinion is representative of the latest scholarship: "Apollo usurped
Helios' place quite late; in the Odyssey, in the Homeric Hymn to
Demeter and other older works, Apollo has no relation to the sun."

Criticisms of the solar school notwithstanding, many of Roscher's
arguments have great merit, particularly with regard to the
supposition that some formidable natural force must lie behind the
respective cults of Mars and Apollo.  Indeed, a strong argument for
identifying Mars as a celestial body is provided by philology, Mars
tracing to the root mar, one meaning of which is "to shine."  This
etymology, however, need not refer to the sunit could apply equally
well to a planet.

That the worship of Apollo and Mars might have been grounded in
ancient traditions associated with the planet Mars seems never to have
been suspected. Yet this is clearly a hypothesis well worthy of
consideration, given the nexus of traditions shared by Apollo and the
Latin war-god, coupled with the explicit identification of the Latin
Mars, Babylonian Nergal, and Ugaritic Reseph with the red planet.

The planetary origin of the cults of Mars and Apollo can resolve many
of the most difficult questions surrounding the worship of these gods
while suggesting clues towards deciphering others.  Consider the
lupine form shared by Apollo and Mars.  Here, too, it is possible to
detect a celestial dimension: According to Babylonian astronomical
records, the wolf was preeminently the animal associated with the
planet Mars, the latter being known as the "wolf-star."  This
Babylonian tradition was apparently taken over by the Greeks and
Romans, who likewise assigned Mars the wolf as sacred animal.

Apollo and Erra 

In Hesiod and the Near East, Walcot documents the substantial
influence Oriental ideas had on Greek religion and mythology.  A
subject of discussion was Apollo's stormy entrance into Olympus:
"The hymn to Apollo opens with a description of how the gods react
when Apollo arrives at the house of Zeus.  They tremble and all
dash from their seats as Apollo enters, stretching his bowThe
apprehension felt both by the other gods and by the island is
hardly what we expect of a god often said to be the most Greek of
all the Olympians, and a rumor which suggests that he was destined
to usurp the prerogative of Zeus is more than a trifle
surprising.  It has been argued, therefore, that such ideas must
be referred to an oriental source."

Walcot goes on to compare this passage with the Enuma Elish, proposing
that Marduk was the Oriental prototype of Apollo.  There Walcot cites
Marduk's role as a dragon-slayer and the fact that he could be found
equipped with a bow.  This hardly seems a sufficient amount of
evidence on which to trace a connection, however.

It would appear that Walcott overlooked the most obvious Oriental
parallel to the passage in the Delian Hymn to Apollonamely, the Poem
of Erra.  Marduk's rising from his seat upon the assault of Erra
offers a remarkable parallel to the gods of Olympus rising from their
seats upon Apollo's approach.  In each case the gods are said to
tremble before the intruder.  We would also call attention to Erra's
boast: "I want to attain the seat of the King of the gods so that his
counsel be not forthcoming."  Is this not a precise parallel to the
rumor that Apollo would usurp the prerogative of Zeus?

Why Walcott overlooked the Poem of Erra in his search for Oriental
influences upon the Delian Hymn to Apollo is not easy to say.
Certainly the aboriginal Apollo, being a god much involved with the
ravages of war and plague, bears a strong resemblance to Erra.

Rudra

It has long been acknowledged that the ancient Indian war-god Rudra
bears a striking resemblance to the Homeric Apollo.  The original
basis behind their similarity, however, remains a mystery.

Various Vedic hymns speak of the destruction and pestilence associated
with Rudra's "arrows" or missiles, which rain forth from heaven,
slaying men and cattle alike.  Consider the following hymn:
"To Rudra we bring these songs, whose bow is firm and strong, the
self-dependent God with swiftly-flying shaftsthe Conqueror whom
none may overcome, armed with sharp-pointed weapons: may he hear
our callMay thy bright arrow which, shot down by thee from heaven,
flieth upon the earth, pass us uninjured bySlay us not, nor
abandon us, O Rudra."

Apparent here is the ominous specter of the god, dealing out death
indiscriminately with his heaven-hurled shafts or "arrows."  Recall
again the earliest epiphany of Apollo in Greek literature:
"Down he strode, wroth at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow
and covered quiver.  The arrows rattled on the shoulders of the
angry god as he moved; and his coming was like the night.  Then he
sat down apart from the ships and let fly a shaft; terrible was
the twang of his silver bow.  The mules he assailed first and the
swift dogs, but thereafter on the men themselves he let fly his
stinging arrows, and smote; and ever did the pyres of the dead
burn thick."

Throughout the Rig Veda and later Vedic tradition, Rudra's malefic
nature is everywhere apparent.  And, as was the case with Apollo,
Rudra's wrath threatens the gods in heaven as well:
"Malevolence is frequently attributed to Rudra in the R.V.; for
the hymns addressed to him chiefly express fear of his terrible
shafts and deprecation of his wrath.  He is implored not to slay
or injureto avert his great malevolence and his bolt from his
worshippersHis ill will and anger are deprecatedHe once even
receives the epithet 'man-slaying'Rudra's malevolence is still
more prominent in the later Vedic textsHe is invoked not to assail
his worshippers with celestial fire and to cause the lightning to
descend elsewhere.  He is even said to assail with fever, cough,
and poisonEven the gods were afraid of the strung bow and the
arrows of Rudra, lest he should destroy them.  Under the name of
Mahadeva he is said to slay cattleHis hosts, which attack man and
beast with disease and death receive the bloody entrails of the
victimas their peculiar share of the sacrifice."

The following passage from the Rig Veda captures the essence of the
god:
"To the strong Rudra bring we these our songs of praise, to him
the Lord of Heroes, Him with the braided hair we call with
reverence down, the wild-boar of the sky, the red, the dazzling
shapeFar be thy dart that killeth men or cattle: thy bliss be with
us, O thou Lord of Heroes."

Who or what, then, is Rudra?  As the red boar of heaven, Rudra is to
be identified with the planet Mars.  His very name reflects his
colorrelatively rare among prominent celestial bodiesthe most likely
etymology tracing it to an ancient word for "red" or "ruddy."  As I
have documented elsewhere, numerous ancient gods identified with Mars
were named with a word signifying "red."  Here the Celtic war-god
Rudiobos/Rudianos (The Red) offers a case in point: In addition to
being identified by the ancients with the Latin god Mars, the name of
the Celtic god shares a root in common with Rudra.

It is noteworthy that Rudra's darts are specifically linked to the
death of cattle.  Indeed, Rudra's intimate association with the
destruction of cattle was proverbial in Vedic and later Indian
tradition.  Is it a coincidence, then, that the very same calamity is
associated with Mars and Martian meteorites in Babylonian omens?
Witness the following omen from Old Babylonian times: "If Salbatanu
[the planet Mars] flames up and destroys the cattle."  The following
omen is also of interest: "If in the sky a meteor (train) from a
planet [Mustabarru mutanu=Mars] appears: destruction of cattle will
occur in the land."  According to Jastrow, one of the most common
omens associated with the red planet was "destruction of cattle."

The resemblance between Apollo and Rudra goes far beyond their mutual
association with pestilence and missiles thrown from heaven.   As
Rudra was regarded as a "boar of heaven," so too was Apollo viewed as
a "boar."  As Apollo was depicted as an aniconic pillar (as Agyieus),
the same was true of Rudra.  As Apollo was associated with the mouse
in his name of Smintheus, so too did a mouse form the special
attendant of Rudra.  As Apollo was thought to have originally been at
home in the North, so was Rudra known to be a "dweller in the north."
As Apollo served as a god of song and music in the Homeric period, so,
too, was Rudra a god of music and singing.  As the Athenian army
appears to have been under the direct patronage of the warrior-Apollo,
Rudra was invoked as the protector of warriors.  As the ancient Greeks
understood the name of Apollo to signify a "destroyer," Rudra appears
as the destroyer par excellence, one hymn placing the following words
in the god's mouth: "I stand as the destroyer."  As Apollo was invoked
to aid in the growth of trees, vegetation, and the harvest, so also
was Rudra.  And as Homer remembered Apollo as a great healerindeed, as
the physician of the godsso, too, was Rudra invoked as the greatest
physician of the gods.

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